Make and Design with Carina Gardner (Carina Gardner)

Have you ever felt completely overwhelmed with all of the things on your to do list? Carina gets vulnerable in today’s episode to tell us about a recent experience she had that *really* stressed her out. Tune in to find out the three questions that Carina asks herself to help her sit with her feelings and discover what she needs to do to overcome the onset of panic. 

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

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About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

It’s almost that time of year again! Carina mentions that August has always marked the beginning of her fall season. August is a great time to start thinking about how we can have our best season ever. Carina emphasizes that it is helpful to sit down and create a game plan for how you can make this your best design season ever. You can evaluate the things you can do to control things like how much money you make, how much you design, and how much you produce.  

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

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About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program Design Bootcamp here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

Raising kids is the one of the most rewarding aspects of adulthood and married life. Join Carina Gardner as she shares 90 real life examples that will help you work with your children to accomplish their dreams.

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

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About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

Have you ever wondered about the serendipitous ways that seemingly-unrelated things connect in a way that makes them both more meaningful? On today’s Make + Design Podcast, Carina is joined by free motion quilting expert and weight loss guru Dara Tomasson who tells us the surprising connection between learning a new skill like free motion quilting and weight loss. Hint: it’s about learning to love yourself.

You can find out more about Dara at https://daratomasson.com/

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

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About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

About Today’s Guest

Dara Tomasson is a life-coach,  professional long-arm quilter, and author. Dara is an expert on helping people through their weightloss journey. The best place to find her is on Instagram at daratomasson. 

Dara’s book, “Doodle School: A Daily Design Challenge to Up Your Free-Motion Quilting Game,” is available on Amazon along with the other books she’s authored.

Carina talks with fellow sewer April Cobb today! April has owned her own product based businesses including handmade goods and a digital fabric printing company. April shares the first steps you should take when building a creative business.

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

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About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

About Today’s Guest

April Cobb is an expert seamstress, fabric designer, and crafter. You can find April’s colorful and gorgeous creations at her Etsy Shop, aprilcobbdesigns.

Today Carina is talking with fellow Riley Blake designer Jill Finley! Jill hosts wonderful quilting retreats for women. Jill talks about these events, sewing, and the details of her wonderful retreats.

You can find Jill at www.jillilystudio.com and on Instagram at @jillilystudio. Pre-order her book at https://www.rileyblakedesigns.com/Jillily-Studio-Quilted-Hugs-Book. 

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

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About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

Afraid of taking risks? In this episode, Carina Gardner explores the benefits of being a risk taker in business. The more conservative you become, the less likely you are to succeed in the highs and lows of design. Join her as she shares her tips for incorporating risk into your career.

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

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About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

Want to build a thriving design business? In this episode, Carina Gardner talks about the process of gaining experience by selling your designs online. By selling your work and taking on freelance contracts to get your name out there, you’ll get the experience you need to become a seasoned designer.

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

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About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

It’s Thanksgiving and Carina takes a short break from talking about design in favor of Thanksgiving Tradition. Join her for this lighthearted episode about gratitude and an American traditional holiday.

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

__________

About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

What is standing between you and that big dream of becoming a designer? Some of you may already be designing, and that’s awesome! You can still take some nuggets from what I talk about today. For the rest of you, if you’re not making money as a designer, are you putting together the steps that will get you there? In this episode, Carina discusses how to get over the hurdles and start making money as a designer. 

Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

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About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program Design Bootcamp here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

What do Broadway and Riley Blake have in common? Christopher Thompson, the Tattoo Quilter, joins us to talk about his recent move to New York City and the experiences that have informed his career.

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

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About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program Design Bootcamp here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

Join us April 16-18 for the Sweet Life of a Designer Summit. 9 Presentations everyday, Live presentations, giveaways from our sponsors, and so many cool downloadable freebies. Get your free ticket at designsuitecourses.com/sweetlifesummit.

At the time of recording this, Carina is finishing up the Design Suite handbook. Design Suite is her mastermind program. This program is where we explore how to become a great designer. When we say that we explore how to become a great designer, we mean that we like our people to be making money by the time they’re done with the program. Because we have people doing many different things, the program includes 17 courses. In this episode, Carina shares some of the Design Suite secrets. 

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

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About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program Design Bootcamp here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

On today’s episode of the Make and Design Podcast, Carina explores the three questions that we should ask ourselves as designers every single day. She shares valuable insights into how she approaches a huge list of things to do and uses these three questions to give priority to the most important projects. Question number one has to do with whether a project makes sense financially. Question number two has to do with efficiency. Question number three is about how to compete in the overall marketplace. Tune it to find out what the three questions are exactly! Carina finishes up by running through several scenarios where she applies the three questions to give examples of why these questions are so vital. Sometimes a “yes” on just one of these questions makes it worth doing! A “no” on all three of these questions is a good indication that the project isn’t worth the effort.

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

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About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

What is your one word for the new year? Today, Carina Gardner shares her one word and how it will guide her in life and in business through the upcoming year.

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

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About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

Looking for new business opportunities? Your Silhouette and Cricut design projects can help you bring in extra income! In this episode, Carina Gardner talks about the benefits of pursuing Silhouette and Cricut design projects, using Illustrator to create designs for multiple platforms.

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

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About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

Have you ever wondered how to balance mental health with having a successful design career? Today, artist and calligraphy expert Melissa Esplin joins Carina to discuss some of the ways to approach maintaining your mental health. Whether it’s getting a new pet or starting formal therapy, Melissa and Carina share their experiences.

Designing is a beautiful way to share wonderful things and fill the world with light and happiness. Just don’t forget, as Melissa says, to “put on your own oxygen mask first!”

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

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About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

About Today’s Guest

Melissa Esplin is a calligraphy expert and entrepreneur who has taught thousands of people to become calligraphy artists over the last decade. She holds a B.F.A. from Brigham Young University and is an avid cyclist. 

Find Melissa on her site at https://www.calligraphy.org/ and on Instagram at melissapher. 

In this episode, Carina talks about the three ways that surface pattern designers and craft designers can reuse what they already have to make money. These tips will help you through the summer season when sales are generally lower for designers. This is a not-to-be-missed episode for new designers!

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

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About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program Design Bootcamp here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

Carina welcomes fellow Riley Blake designer Gracey Larson onto the show to talk about her new fabric line “Beneath the Western Skies.” Carina and Gracey talk about the creation of the line and the patterns in it. To see actual fabric samples, please visit this episode on youtube at www.youtube.com/carinagardner.

You can find Gracey Larson on instagram at @burlapandblossompatterns and at her site https://www.burlapandblossompatterns.com.

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

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About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

On today’s episode of the Make + Design Podcast, Carina tells us about the one little word that will change your life. The word is ACTION. Carina tells us how taking action helps her gain clarity, get unstuck, and build momentum when it comes to starting (or completing!) a project. Carina also walks us through some of the ways that she takes action to propel her forward. The first way she likes to take action is step-by-step action, meaning that she visualizes each step along the way to complete a project. The second kind of action Carina takes is strategic action. Strategic action starts with visualizing the end goal and then being very mindful about prioritizing the tasks that will lead to it. 

As an example on how to take ACTION, Carina walks through the step-by-step process of becoming a designer. She gives three or four examples of what a good first step looks like and then talks through what would come next. The important thing is to TAKE ACTION and commit to that action. She also walks us through a non-design example: planning a typical summer day with kids in the house. 

Listen in to hear the biggest way that taking ACTION will transform your daily life. 

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

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About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

Today’s episode of Make + Design features guest star Christopher Thompson, an amazing fabric designer who works as the Director of Product Marketing at Riley Blake Designs. Christopher and Carina share stories about growing up working on tie quilts with their families. Join us for Christopher’s wonderful stories and insights into his new fabric line at Riley Blake, Saturday in Paris. 

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

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About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

About Today’s Guest

Christopher Thompson was a fashion designer in New York City when he discovered the modern quitting movement. His decision to lean in to the movement has led to publications in QuiltCon, Modern Patchwork, among others. He is currently the Director of Product Marketing for Riley Blake Designs, for whom he designs wonderful, bold fabrics. You can find his work at www.thetattooedquilter.com. 

Tell me if you have experienced this. You sit down and stare at a blank screen…and you can’t think of anything to design! It is so frustrating! Here are three ideas for getting your creative juices flowing. 

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

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About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program Design Bootcamp here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

On today’s episode of the Make and Design Podcast, Carina tells about how she found early success in her design career because she spent almost as much time on her previews as she did on her product. A preview is simply a marketing tool, a visual layout used as an icon to sell a product. Listen in to get two tips on how to create great digital previews!

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

__________

About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

On today’s episode of the Make and Design Podcast, Carina takes a deep dive into why just because you want something doesn’t really mean you BELIEVE you will be able to get it. Belief is powerful especially for makers and designers. Carina shares insights that she learned from the book “Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance” by Angela Duckworth. She also gives insight into lessons she’s learned about belief while raising three very different children. 

Carina shares two secrets that will help you move your *wants* into a mental place where you *believe* you will get what you want. Hint: they have to do with the people you spend time with and how you spend your time. When you implement these two secrets, your wants will become beliefs! 

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

__________

About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

What are some of the unintended consequences of pursuing a career in design? Join us as Carina Gardner shares three of the unintended consequences of her design business and how they have affected her career.

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

__________

About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

It’s time to work smarter, not harder! In this episode, Carina Gardner talks about the importance of designing in batches. By producing more work in a shorter amount of time, you can build a successful business without draining your energy.

__________

Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

__________

About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program Design Bootcamp here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

Designers, take note–literally! In this episode of Make and Design, Carina shares how she uses journaling to map out her big ideas and make them happen. She also goes into specific detail about how to plan and map out a project that’s an entire collection of related pieces. 

__________

Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

__________

About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

When was the last time you diagnosed your design business? Regardless of whether you’re deep into your design journey or just beginning, you should be doing monthly assessments of your design business. Listen to this episode to hear how Carina assesses her own design business. 

__________

Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

__________

About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program Design Bootcamp here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

Ready for the Accelerated Designer Workshop program? In this episode, Carina talks about the monthly program which is designed to take a deep dive into design topics. When you get the all access pass, you can access to twelve months of Accelerated Designer Workshops with the click of a button!

__________

Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

__________

About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program Design Bootcamp here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

It’s Carina’s birthday, and Carina is celebrating by giving you permission to celebrate the way you need to in this season. It is the opening of the holiday season and many of us put a lot of pressure on ourselves and forget to spend time celebrating with loved ones. 

__________

Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

__________

About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

On today’s episode of Make + Design, Carina talks about flow state and not just how to find it but how to create it. Carina has discovered that to be the best designer possible producing the best work, she needs to get into flow. Flow occurs when you are so absorbed in the thing at hand that time stands still, you don’t notice the things around you, and you find yourself in an amazing state where you just move forward. Sometimes we don’t notice we’re in flow until after the fact. Flow state has a lot of amazing benefits: your enjoyment goes up, your ability goes insane, and you even get a dopamine hit. For Carina, there are some really specific things that get her into flow. As you evaluate when you get into flow, pay attention to the things that got you there (did you have a big block of time or was it something else?).

__________

Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

__________

About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

Want to know if your design business is on the right track? In this episode, Carina Gardner shares three ways to know if you are thinking like a designer. These tips will help you refine your design business and set you up for success in 2022.

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

__________

About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

In this episode, we are joined by Diane Rooney who is a past Design Suite member who has joined the CG Team. She currently moderates our peer design meetings and works with the Design Suite community and membership. Carina and Diane dig into what they are seeing in the membership and what happens to designers during this time of year.

__________

Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

__________

About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program Design Bootcamp here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

Ink Club is all about crafting, being creative, and being inspired by anything you do creatively. It’s a really fun way to get that inspiration in your life for a really inexpensive price. Find out more in this episode!

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

__________

About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

On this episode of Make and Design, Carina welcomes special guest and Riley Blake designer Melanie Collette. Melanie talks about the process of getting a fabric line accepted by a major company for the first time. Hear about how, after initially getting no responses from fabric companies, she sat down, studied what made the fabric lines that she was buying special, and then incorporated all she learned into a focused effort to have a fabric line accepted by a specific company. Hear the whole story of hard work and persistence that finally got her to that first YES! 

Find about more about Melanie at the following places:

Website: http://www.hellomellydesigns.com 

Instagram: hellomellydesigns

__________

Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

__________

About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

On today’s episode of the Make and Design Podcast, Carina tells a story of a recent realization: she didn’t have any testimonials from community members on her website! The testimonials that came in were eye-opening. Listen in to this episode to learn about ways that having a community can help keep you motivated in your design career. If you’d like to join our community then go to www.carinagardnercourses.com/bootcamp. We can’t wait to see you there!

__________

Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

__________

About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

On today’s episode of Make + Design, Carina talks to us about color. Carina tells us what her university courses on color were like and about how hands-on a color class is with mixing and analyzing different colors of paint. Listen in to hear Carina’s thoughts on the 2021 Pantone Colors of the Year and how they relate to the Pandemic. Pantone’s description of the colors is a great case study on how to approach color and infuse your designs with meaning. Find the full description at www.pantone.com. 

After that introduction to the power of color, Carina breaks down the considerations she kept in mind when selecting colors for a summertime photoshoot. She compares how she might choose colors for a summertime project compared to an autumn project. She ends by giving advice on how to approach a project with limited color choices and how that affects the design work itself.

__________

Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

__________

About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

Lots of people “flirt” with the idea of becoming a surface pattern designer or paper designer. Fewer people commit to the idea and even fewer make it their Plan A. Where do you fit in?

__________

Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

__________

About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

On today’s episode of the Make and Design Podcast, Carina looks at a BIG word: Commitment. She analyses what it takes to be a person who says what they say they’re going to do and how that relates to integrity. We all have different levels of commitment depending on the thing we’re committing to. Carina talks about some things she learned from the book “When” by Daniel H. Pink. How often do we let extenuating circumstances keep us from following through with our commitments? She also talks about the difference in the activity level of people who are committed compared to those who are doing something only half-heartedly. One of the big advantages to commitment and consistency is that it builds patterns within us that make us more dependable. 

__________

Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

__________

About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

It’s time to strategize! In this episode, Carina talks about the value of short term vs. long term strategy for designers. With the right approach, designers can put a plan in place to make money consistently over the long term. A comprehensive design strategy is the best way to make sure that you bring in income and build a successful business.

__________

Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

__________

About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program Design Bootcamp here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

Carina talks about how gratitude changed her attitude about life. Filling your heart with an abundance mentality can do wonders for your design work and daily life. Learn more about how gratitude can create unforeseen changes that will help you in your work and personal endeavors. 

__________

Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

__________

About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

Carina welcomes her friend Crista Grasso on the podcast to talk about strategy, systems, and team! As designers we are always looking for ways to up level our business and Crista knows alot about taking companies from single entrepreneurs to growing and scaling.

Listen to Crista’s practical tips for building systems in your business and thinking strategically!

You can find Crista Grasso at https://www.leanoutmethod.com/ for more on how she helps businesses scale! You can also check out her podcast at https://www.leanoutmethod.com/podcast.

__________

Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

__________

About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

Time management guru Megan Sumrell joins Carina on today’s episode of Make and Design, and explains why they’re launching a course called “Time Management for Designers.” For Megan, good time management skills free designers up to unlock their creativity. This course sets designers up so that they can feel like the sky is the limit in terms of how they design. Megan and Carina talk about how they teach in the same way, giving learners step-by-step, bite-sized, doable chunks. They’re super excited to share an outline of the content and bonuses you’ll get with this course, which launches March 1st!

Tune in to get the exclusive coupon code to save over 50% on the course!

The course can be found at https://www.megansumrell.com/creatives.

Megan can be found at megansumrell.com or on Instagram at megansumrell.

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

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About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

Today on Make + Design, Carina takes a quick look at the differences between Photoshop and Illustrator and gives some of the reasons that good designers use both tools. Photoshop is super useful for everyday things like editing photos. Illustrator is the main tool for professional designers though. 

The first difference that Carina goes into is the difference between pixels and vectors. In Photoshop, every image is divided into tiny little squares. When you enlarge pixels, the image begins to distort as the squares get bigger. In Illustrator, images are divided into vectors, which is just a line. When you enlarge an image in Illustrator, it continues to keep the same high quality. Illustrator is the place we’ll be for drawing and designing. Photoshop is great for brochures and photos.

The next difference that Carina delves into is layering differences. In Photoshop, we use the laying system to keep things organized. In Illustrator, layering is not as important. The pallet system allows designers in Illustrator to leave design work all over their artboard, which can help with creativity. Carina cautions designers who spend most of their time in Illustrator that it’s easy sometimes to forget to layer in Photoshop and things get disorganized quickly.

The place where Photoshop really shines is in the difference between .jpg, .tif, .ai, and .eps files. We all use JPEG and TIF files in everyday life. AI and EPS files aren’t used as often in everyday life and even our Illustrator files end up as JPEGs for final production. This is the biggest reason we need Photoshop. We want to give our end user a variety of ways to use our files.

Great designers use both!

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

__________

About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at

Looking for the perfect way to start your day? In this episode, Carina Gardner talks about her morning routine and how it has helped her succeed in life and in business. With the right plan in place, you can plan your day with intention and purpose.

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

__________

About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program Design Bootcamp here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

In this episode, Carina talks about the things she wishes she had known when she started designing full time 14 years ago. These items that are discussed are those that involve really starting and running a design business. 

__________

Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

__________

About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program Design Bootcamp here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

Struggling with instant gratification? In this episode, Carina Gardner dives into the time that it takes to learn new skills. In the long run, patience and perseverance will help you develop the tools that you need to be successful as a designer.

__________

Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

__________

About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program Design Bootcamp here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

Design is a full-time job! In this episode, Carina explains why you should do more than the bare minimum to become a surface pattern or crafting designer. Find your path to surface pattern or crafting design while juggling all of your responsibilities and pursuing your dreams.

__________

Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

__________

About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program Design Bootcamp here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

Aha moments are important moments in time where if you implement the idea, you can completely change the trajectory of your life. Carina tells you a simple story of when a simple aha moment changed something that made her life a little easier. 

These small (or big) aha’s have the ability to make your life easier or better. Take them and figure out how to move your design career forward!

__________

Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

__________

About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

This episode discusses building resilience as a designer. Carina discusses that when she was teaching at the university, the main emphasis was on having a thick skin.  Especially when we’re starting something new later in life, it’s hard to hear criticism because many feel like they should have everything down. While this can be a difficult thing to teach, and for some to accept, this is an important lesson to learn. 

__________

Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

__________

About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program Design Bootcamp here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

We finally reached the 100th episode! Today, Carina Gardner will talk about milestones and the important role that they play in our daily lives. Learn more about Carina as she shares a story about the achievements that have changed her life for the better.

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

__________

About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program Design Bootcamp here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

Do you love the idea of becoming a designer but worry that you don’t draw well enough to make it work? Listen in as Carina debunks some misconceptions about how good you have to be at illustrating in order to make it as a designer. There’s a *lot* more to being a surface pattern designer than being able to draw with pencil and paper. Listen in to find out why you don’t need to know how to draw to become a great designer!

__________

Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

__________

About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

In honor of Valentine’s Day, Carina shares some tips about learning to LOVE *your* style. Carina shares how her style has shifted over the years and how leaning into your current style fills your work with authenticity.

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

__________

About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

Squad meetings are just one of the many benefits of our Design Suite Program. We find that the squad meetings are an important piece that many designers are missing when it comes to community. Diane Rooney, who currently moderates the squad meetings and is also a former Design Suite member, joins us to give the inside scoop on what happens in squad meetings.  

__________

Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

__________

About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program Design Bootcamp here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

Join us April 16-18 for the Sweet Life of a Designer Summit. 9 Presentations everyday, Live presentations, giveaways from our sponsors, and so many cool downloadable freebies. Get your free ticket at designsuitecourses.com/sweetlifesummit.

Carina digs into three ways you can make a living creating designs! Have you tried any of these ways to make money? With a great business strategy and beautiful design work these are some great ways to earn money doing what you love for a living.

__________

Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

__________

About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program Design Bootcamp here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

On today’s episode of the Make + Design Podcast, Carina runs through the reasons why *writing* is so important to developing ideas. For her, most great ideas start with paper and pen–this is one of the reasons that her membership group is called “Ink Club.” Carina recalls that on Episode 21 of the Podcast, calligraphy expert Melissa Esplin taught us about bullet journals. Both Melissa and Carina use multiple journals. 

Carina walks us through the journals that she uses and how they help her. Carina keeps a “traditional journal,” like a diary to record thoughts and events. She also keeps a “business journal,” where rights down new ideas, notes on new podcast episodes, and other inspiration that comes to her. Carina also uses her business journal for one of her daily practices, writing down her ten biggest dreams as if they have already happened. Her business journal is the one she takes with her to conferences and business meetings. Carina keeps her journals and they become physical evidence of what she has accomplished. If you begin to journal then you will be amazed when you look back and see the results of all that you’ve accomplished. That physical evidence helps you to overcome imposter syndrome by giving you proof that you are amazing! Carina really digs in and takes a deep dive into the revelations, epiphanies, and plans that have come to her because she writes it down. “When we write it down it somehow always turns into a plan.”

__________

Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

__________

About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

Carina is joined by artist and calligraphy expert Melissa Esplin on today’s episode of Make + Design. Melissa tells us about how she got into creative arts and how she tried to bridge the gap between fine art and graphic design as an undergrad and how that created tension between two halves of a department that simultaneously was jealous of and looked down on the other half of the department. Melissa shares the hilarious story of her Senior project for her Bachelors of Fine Arts in which they almost didn’t give her the “Fine” in the degree because her final project was done in Illustrator instead of a more traditional medium like oil paint. Carina shares a “what price art” moment from when she was pregnant for the first time and painted in a way that concerned her doctor. What could that possibly mean? LOL. 

Melissa walks through her post-college journey and how it led her to a love of calligraphy after she was inspired by a book she inherited that had belonged to her great-great grandfather. Melissa talks about how important it was for her as an artist to make ugly stuff in the beginning as she learned her craft and improved. She tells the journey of monetizing her art by taking a risk with starting her own calligraphy instruction site. Carina and Melissa dig into what it takes to run a successful online business and strategies for driving traffic to a website. They also talk about the importance of mental health and self care like exercise. 

_________

Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

__________

About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

About Tod

Join us April 16-18 for the Sweet Life of a Designer Summit. 9 Presentations everyday, Live presentations, giveaways from our sponsors, and so many cool downloadable freebies. Get your free ticket at designsuitecourses.com/sweetlifesummit.

Carina talks about the 5 levels you can hit as a designer. You could be at any one of these stages, but the goal is always to get to the next level! Identify where you are and where you want to be!

__________

Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

__________

About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

Join us April 16-18 for the Sweet Life of a Designer Summit. 9 Presentations everyday, Live presentations, giveaways from our sponsors, and so many cool downloadable freebies. Get your free ticket at designsuitecourses.com/sweetlifesummit.

Ready to become a designer? In this episode, Carina talks about the joys of building a design business. Wake up every day with the excitement that comes from loving your work and enjoying your life!

__________

Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

__________

About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program Design Bootcamp here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

Fellow Riley Blake designer Bev McCullough joins Carina for some insights on her recent fabric collection. To see some of the samples Carina and Bev talk about in this episode, please visit Carina’s youtube channel at www.youtube.com/carinagarder. 

Learn more about Bev and her new book at instagram at @flamingotoes.

__________

Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

__________

About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

About Today’s Guest

Bev McCullough is an expert seamstress who began designing her own clothes as a teenager. She’s also a blogger who loves to share her work at https://flamingotoes.com/. Bev also designs fabric for Riley Blake Designs, has authored books on embroidery and jewelry making (available on Amazon) and can be found on instagram at flamingotoes.

The stepping stones to becoming a surface pattern designer require time and commitment. Today, Carina talks about the three steps you need to achieve to become a surface pattern designer. These are the foundational action steps needed to achieve your big dreams!

__________

Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

__________

About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program Design Bootcamp here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

On today’s episode of the Make + Design Podcast, Carina takes two steps back from her usual tips and strategies about design to talk about how to become a designer. Carina gives us two nuggets of wisdom when it comes to becoming a designer: First, you have to know the software that professional designers use to produce their work. Learn what these are as Carina walks through the most important skills and softwares you need to become a designer. Second, you need to find a marketplace. Hear what Carina has to say about how to find a market that works for you and your style! Carina also gives us a link to a resource with SEVEN additional tips on how to become a designer.

About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

What’s more effective? Planning daily or planning weekly? Time Management expert Megan Summrell joins Carina on today’s episode to give you some surprising answers to those questions. Megan walks through the basics of her Top Planner system to show you how to become more efficient. Thanks, Megan!

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

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About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

About Today’s Guest

Megan Sumrell is a mathematician, software engineer, mother, dog mom, and time management guru. Her time management expertise can be found at www.megansumrell.com. 

Megan and Carina also co-teach a course on time management specifically for creatives! You can learn more about it here: https://www.megansumrell.com/creatives. 

Carina is joined by her sister and Etsy guru SuiKim Friedmann on today’s episode of the Make and Design Podcast. Carina and Kim get real about the struggles of parenting while running a business during the busy summer months while kids are out of school. Kim took the advice from her last visit to the podcast and freed up some additional time by hiring someone to help her with her workflow. Carina runs through her typical daily routine during the summer. Find out how the sisters break up their day to make sure that they get work done for their businesses while still spending quality time with the kiddos. Carina gives another recommendation for the book “When” by Daniel H. Pink.

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

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About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

About Today’s Guest

SuiKim Friedmann is an Etsy guru, coach, and blogger who shares her wisdom on how to build a dynamite Etsy shop at www.suikim.com. Her old website, www.kimcrafts.com, will redirect you to the new one!

How do you share creativity with your kids? In this episode, Bonnie and Audrey join Carina Gardner to share their tips and tricks for modeling creativity for children. You can listen to the Outnumbered Podcast by visiting their website: https://outnumberedthepodcast.castos.com/ .

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

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About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

In today’s episode of Make and Design, Carina talks about how “batching” is a HUGE strategy for managing all the things we have on our plates as designers. Learn the three ways that Carina batches her work and how batching makes your products more marketable.

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

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About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

When was the last time someone told you how valuable you are? Carina gets real today about how important it is to feel valued. You probably don’t hear it often enough from the people in your life. Carina hints at tough things she experienced in her childhood and tells a very vulnerable story about the first time that her intrinsic value as a human being was described to her in a way that made her believe it. YOU ARE VALUABLE. What you’re doing in this world is important!

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

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About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

On today’s episode of Make + Design, Carina walks us through a quote that she recently read from leadership guru Stephen R. Covey: “I am not a product of my circumstances, I am a product of my decisions.” She feels like it’s a freeing thought to be a product of your decisions because it frees you from playing the role of victim. When we’re a product of our circumstances then we are the victim and we have zero control. Many studies show that feeling powerless makes us feel hopeless. Good decisions lead to positive changes in life, which leads to hope. 

Carina also talks us through the things that she thinks about to make decisions very quickly. The worst that can happen when you make a quick decision is that you make the wrong decision. In most cases in life, we’ll have the opportunity to course correct when we need to. When we make quick decisions we are CHOOSING the kind of life we want to have. She also walks us through some of the little decisions that we can make. Little decisions turn into monumental things that teach us how to live a creative life. 

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

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About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

Struggling as a designer? In this episode, Carina goes over three reasons why your design business may be stuck. With the right advice, you can overcome obstacles in your design business and make positive changes to turn your career around. 

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

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About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program Design Bootcamp here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

On today’s episode of Make + Design, Carina talks about the progress that designers make over time. She talks about taking a somewhat embarrassing (for her!) trip down memory lane when she recently searched for herself on the internet. Over 15 years of search results, she saw a lot of progress in her design work. She had a similar experience when she taught college, seeing the huge improvement that design students made from their first year of college through their senior year of college. While going to college is a great way to get a design education, Carina doesn’t recommend college for those transitioning into a second career.  For those looking to start a second career, finding a great, year-long program that teaches specific skills is the better way to go.

Carina invites all of us to go back and look at our design work so that we can see the improvement and progress that we’ve made over time. She encourages us to stick with it because good things will come as we continue to work and improve.

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

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About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

Do you ever struggle with confidence? Whether we are well-trained and experienced or just starting out, a nagging lack of confidence can affect any of us. Today Carina gives us some tips on surrounding ourselves with people who will give us a boost in confidence.

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

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About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

On today’s episode of the Make and Design Podcast, Carina talks about her three favorite tools for doing design work right now. Give it a listen to learn the three tools that Carina finds essential to design work (Spoiler: one is hardware, one is an item you might find around the house, and one is an accessory for an iPad Pro). Carina also talks about what those who join her new Accelerated Designer Workshop Series will learn this year. Check out the workshops at https://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designerworkshop!

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

__________

About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

What is the one thing you aren't paying attention to in your design business? Are you designing daily? Are you learning the correct software skills? If you are doing these things then what could you possibly be missing? Carina breaks down what most design businesses are missing in this episode.

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

__________

About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program Design Bootcamp here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

On today’s episode of the Make and Design Podcast, Carina is joined by Dara Tomasson, a resident of beautiful Vancouver Island and professional long-arm quilter. Dara is also an author and has a new book called “Doodle School” about how to free-motion quilt. Dara also talks about her passion for working as a life coach for quilters. She helps them to lose weight and build confidence. Find out how Dara’s “tall-girl problems” led her into sewing, quilting, and, eventually, long-arm quilting. Dara gives her recommendations and ideas on different kinds of long-arm quilts. Dara and Carina explore the ways that long-arm quilting is a unique art form. You’ll want to check out the YouTube video on this one as well so that you can see Dana’s beautiful quilting. Towards the end of the conversation, Dara tells us about her new life-coaching business and how she got into it. She expresses so much joy in talking about how she helps women lose weight and helps them fulfill their dreams.

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

__________

About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

About Today’s Guest

Dara Tomasson is a life-coach,  professional long-arm quilter, and author. Dara can be found on Instagram at daratomasson.

On today’s episode of the Make + Design Podcast, Carina gives some thoughts about social media and how important it actually is for a designer. Carina finds that it doesn’t matter how big someone’s following is, social media still leaves one feeling a bit empty. One things she does is debunk the perception that having a large following equals making a lot of money. Carina has seen people with small followings make millions and people with large followings make next to nothing. She also discusses the never ending cycle of always wanting to hit the next number when it comes to followers, views, and likes. In some cases, she says, losing followers is not a bad thing.

Carina also shares some strategies for making it more meaningful. One thing that makes social media more meaningful for Carina is to have genuine interactions with people. At the end of the day, a design career is about being a designer, not being a social media influencer. Carina finds that when you focus on producing great product that the marketing and opportunities tens to fall into place. 

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

__________

About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

Ever wondered how new designers typically get a contract with a fabric manufacturer? On today’s episode of Make + Design, Carina tells the hilarious story of how she did everything wrong in getting her first fabric contract. What she tells us provides a lot of insight into how you can do it the right way to win your first fabric contract.

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

__________

About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

Do you like to give your friends and loved ones crafty creations for birthdays and holidays? On today’s episode of Make + Design, originally published in October 2021, Carina talks about how to map out and plan your projects so that you get them done before the holiday you need them for! Carina loves the holidays and loves getting ready for them with lots of pretty creations! Tune in to see how she structures her holiday season!

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

__________

About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

What are your goals for the new year? In this episode, Carina Gardner talks about goal setting and shares three ways to hit your goals for 2022. With the right plan in place, you can head in to the new year with confidence, knowing that you will reach the goals that you have set for yourself.

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

__________

About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

Ready to get organized? In this episode, Carina talks about the tools that have helped her stay organized as a designer. With the right project management software, you can hold onto your best ideas and become an organized designer without spending too much time on strategy.

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

__________

About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program Design Bootcamp here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

Burnout is a real thing in today’s design world. Especially as markets FEEL more competitive, designers find it difficult to be creative under pressure. If you have been feeling burned out, it can be due to a number of different factors. Identifying those factors and using Carina’s five tips will help you deal with burnout in this not-to-be-missed episode.

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

__________

About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

Over the years, the design market has changed dramatically. Carina goes over some of those changes and why NOW is an amazing time to get into design.

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

__________

About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program Design Bootcamp here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

What does it take to become a great designer or to do something great in anything you do? Find out as Carina talks us through the kinds of sacrifices in time and money it takes to level up or do something great. Have you ever thought about whether time or money is more important? Carina shares her thoughts on which is more important and why.

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

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About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

On today’s episode of Make and Design, Carina talks to crafting expert and instructor Kelly Wayment about her career. The ladies discuss Kelly’s trajectory from getting started in paper crafting as a hobbyist and how, over time, she developed the skills and following to become an industry expert. Kelly also tells us about her excitement of discovering the first Silhouette machine back in 2008 and how this led to her love of 3D paper crafts. Listen in to hear a crafting trick that Carina didn’t even know about! 

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

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About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

About Today’s Guest

Kelly Wayment is a crafting instructor and has taught on sites like Craftsy, Michaels, and Silhouette.

Find Kelly at www.findingtimetocreate.com and on Instagram at kraftingkelly.

Focused on finding your next contract? In this episode, Carina Gardner talks about the importance of planning ahead as a surface pattern designer. There are so many ways to make money with surface pattern design, and Carina will share more opportunities that you can pursue in your business.

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

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About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

On today’s Make + Design Podcast, Kelly Wayment returns to talk about some of her favorite paper crafts projects and to give general advice about how to create beautiful, intricate projects using a cutting machine like a Silhouette. She and Carina talk about how to position tabs, when it’s a good idea to hand cut something, and where to store the projects that you create. There’s tons of inspiration and happy thoughts in this wonderful interview!

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

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About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

About Today’s Guest

Kelly Wayment is a paper, vinyl, and heat-transfer crafting expert. She is also an instructor and has taught on sites like Craftsy, Michaels, and Silhouette.

Find Kelly at www.findingtimetocreate.com and on Instagram at kraftingkelly.

On today’s episode of the Make and Design Podcast, Carina examines when it makes sense for designers to do good work, when it makes sense to do better work, and when it makes sense to do your very best work (spoiler alert: it depends on the medium!). Carina also takes us on a trip down memory lane as she explains what it was like to design her very first fabric line way back in 2007. She gives great insight into how hard or how rewarding it is to learn new skills as a designer. 

One of the keys to being able to distinguish between your “good” work, your “better” work, and your “best” work is to create *a lot* of design work. Only when you’ve put in the hours to create a large portfolio will you have the experience to know what’s good, better, or best. Carina’s shares three things  to consider when you’re leveling up and learning to measure whether your design work is moving from good to better. Hear her tips on time, editing, and direction (as it relates to your original inspiration for a project) when it comes to your work. 

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

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About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

Where does freelancing fit in with launching a design career? In this episode of Make + Design, Carina breaks down all the reasons that freelance work can be a vital part of learning to design, getting experience, and learning to work with clients. Listen in for great tips on how to be successful with freelancing. 

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

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About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

On today’s episode of Make + Design, Carina tells us why the timing is perfect for launching Ink Club, an idea that she’s been thinking about for years. 

Carina recognizes that designers, by nature, often work alone and may even be introverts. Although working on our own can be satisfying, sometimes we as makers, crafters, and designers want a community where we can show our work to other makers, get their feedback, and learn about additional resources for their work.

Ink Club gives you, first, resources and ideas for new projects. Each month Ink Club will give you a new Silhouette or Cricut tutorial every month, a brand new quilting tutorial every month, and an art tutorial every month, including all of the PDFs and files you need to create the projects. The second thing Ink Club gives you is community. As creatives, we need to share and show our designs to people. Ink Club has a paper crafting corner, an artist corner, and a quilting corner. It also has a sharing space and daily activities like a Member Spotlight on Mondays and Wisdom Wednesdays. Thursday Treat Day is the day when new tutorials launch. Ink Club also has monthly giveaways and prizes, as well as a library of downloads. Ink Club includes content for creatives of every field. If you’re a paper crafter then Ink Club will give you access to beginner content for sewing or watercolor painting. 

So why is this exclusive group called “Ink Club”? Carina walks us through the reason: regardless of the project she is working on–a quilt, a fabric line, a Silhouette design, a scrapbooking paper line–Carina always starts her projects with paper and pen. 

The purpose of Ink Club is to build up the individuals in the community and to give creatives a place to share and experience community. Can’t wait to see you there!

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

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About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

Want to learn more about quilt pattern design? In this episode, Melanie Colette joins Carina Gardner to explore quilt design and share her latest patterns. Learn more about Melanie Colette by visiting her website at http://www.hellomellydesigns.com/.

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

__________

About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

Carina talks with fellow RIley Blake designer Melanie Collette about her new fabric line Primrose Hill. Watch Carina’s youtube channel to see the fabric samples they discuss during their conversation at www.youtube.com/carinagardner. During their talk, Melanie dives into her inspiration for her new line and reasons she chose certain colors. If you like fabric, you will love this conversation!

Find out more about Melanie at https://www.hellomellydesigns.com/.

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

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About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

About Today’s Guest

Melanie is a fabric designer for Riley Blake and the mother of four children.

Find about more about Melanie at the following places:

Website: http://www.hellomellydesigns.com 

Instagram: hellomellydesigns

Today Carina talks with fellow fabric designer and Design Suite Member Diane Rooney. Diane talks about all her experiences in the crafting and sewing world. Carina and Diane talk about life lessons and making your passion a career. As you’ll hear, it’s never too late to start following  your passion!

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

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About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

 Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/

About Today’s Guest

Diane Rooney is a fabric designer, illustrator, and digital artist with a passion to help and inspire others in their own creative pursuits. Her design work has featured in software, television, fabric, and many other mediums. Find out all about Diane’s gorgeous design work, career, and family at https://www.dianerooney.co.uk/.

Join us April 16-18 for the Sweet Life of a Designer Summit. 9 Presentations everyday, Live presentations, giveaways from our sponsors, and so many cool downloadable freebies. Get your free ticket at designsuitecourses.com/sweetlifesummit.